Extreme Uses of Privacy.com Part II

In my last article I discussed how I use Privacy.com cards on very regular basis. My hope is to inspire you to use privacy cards in as many facets of your daily life as possible. That being said, using privacy cards in person is hardly sunshine and rainbows. I have had some failures along the way (besides the Double Supreme Extra Cheese Incident), resulting in some rather awkward situations. Continue reading “Extreme Uses of Privacy.com Part II”

Big Changes to Private Internet Access iOS

I have been a fan of Private Internet Access for a long time. Back in December I began looking at some other VPN options for iOS. This was due to one major limiting feature: the PIA iOS app did not support OpenVPN. This has changed recently and the Private Internet Access iOS app is now better than ever. Continue reading “Big Changes to Private Internet Access iOS”

Book Review: Hunting El Chapo

I have used Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman as a case study for cell phone interception in my classes for several years. Only now do I have the full story of how the world’s most notorious drug trafficker was brought down due to his reliance on electronic communications. If you have an interest in how government agencies exploit cell phone activity you should read Hunting El Chapo by Andrew Hogan. The technical specifics are dated but the concepts, like link and network analysis, are not. Continue reading “Book Review: Hunting El Chapo”

Extreme Uses of Privacy.com

Note: This is a guest post from my friend Scrappy. We’ve met in person a couple of times and he has really impressed me with his dedication to privacy, and pushing the limits of Privacy.com. He wanted to share some of his experiences and I am very appreciative.

Ever since I listened to Episode 15 of the Complete Privacy & Security (CPS) Podcast I have been hooked on private payments. For those of you that are new to the privacy world and have not heard of privacy.com,  it’s a free service that allows an individual to create masked debit card numbers. These can be used to make purchases without companies knowing who you bank with and your individual debit/credit card numbers. Continue reading “Extreme Uses of Privacy.com”

Five Steps to Protecting Your Home Address

Achieving comprehensive personal privacy is a complicated goal involving a lot of complex, discrete steps. On this blog I (and on the podcast we) spend a lot of time focusing on the highly specific, individual steps. Often we fail to provide a lot of context for why we’re doing them, or how they fit into the bigger picture. This was called to my attention recently when an old friend contacted me. He has a legitimate safety reason to wish to be more private, and asked me for advice. Unfortunately, I don’t have a single blog post or podcast episode I could offer him that effectively introduces the basic steps of protecting your home address. Continue reading “Five Steps to Protecting Your Home Address”